The Other White Meat on Wheels

By Tk Published on September 01, 2002.

Graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister, best known for his album art for the Rolling Stones, Lou Reed and others, has gone high-gear political with a caravan called Rolling Piggies. The tendentious porkers represent, in descending-size order, Federal spending on the military, education and world hunger. The project is on behalf of TrueMajority (truemajority.com), "a group of American business leaders who are trying to get our government to adopt a number of long-term policies designed to prevent another 9/11," explains Sagmeister. The group is led by Ben & Jerry's co-founder Ben Cohen, who collaborated on the design with Sagmeister and James Riseborough. The caravan is driving around the U.S. drumming up support, and at press time was headed for a big rally in Manhattan, with Ben & Jerry's ice cream distributed gratis, as a sweetener, you might say. Sagmeister Inc. also designed the TrueMajority identity, brochures, banners, festival booths and the like, and this is not Sagmeister's first political foray for Ben Cohen. He was earlier involved in a campaign called Move Our Money, seeking to transfer 15 percent of the Pentagon budget to education. Whence the activism? During his sabbatical of last year, "my year without clients," as he calls it, "I decided to do less work for the music industry and more work for causes I like," says Sagmeister. "I have nothing against selling, but I know that design can do so much more. Now the mix is roughly a third music-related design, a third cause-related and a third corporate stuff." And politics offers some fresh professional challenges. "We surely never designed cars before."